Research Methods Flashcards
What does operationalised mean?
A variable is defined so that there is no confusion.
What are the two different types of variables?
Independent and Dependent.
What is an independent variable?
A variable that is changed.
What is a dependent variable?
A variable that is measured.
What are the two different types of conditions?
Control and experimental.
What are the two different types of hypotheses?
One-tailed/Directional and Two-tailed/Non-directional.
What is an aim?
A general statement that describes the purpose of the investigation.
What is a hypothesis?
A prediction of how the results are going to turn out.
What is an extraneous variable?
An additional unwanted variable in a study that can affect the IV/DV e.g. Room temperature.
What is a confounding variable?
When extraneous variables take effect.
What are demand characteristics?
Where participants change their behavior if they realize they are in a study.
What is the investigator effect?
The investigator unknowingly effects the study by unconscious behavior e.g. participant selection.
What is randomisation?
A way to reduce the effect of bias, extraneous variables. Can be done by a random name slecetor or random number generator.
What is standardisation?
All participants are subject to the same environment, information and experience.
What are the different types of experimental designs?
Repeated measures, independent measures and matched pairs.
What are the strengths of repeated measures design?
No individual differences.
Fewer participants required.
What are the limitations of repeated measures design?
Order effects - can be overcome by counterbalancing.
One condition may help the other.
What are the strengths of independent measures design?
No order effects.
What are the limitations of independent measures design?
Individual differences.
Uneconomic use of participants.
What are the strengths of matched pairs design?
No order effects.
Reduced individual differences.
What are the limitations of matched pairs design?
Time consuming finding similar pairs.
Perfect matches are hard to find.
What are the different experimental methods?
Lab, Field, Natural and Quasi.
What are the strengths of lab experiments?
There is high control over variables.
Standardised procedure=replicability and reliability.
What are the limitations of lab experiments?
Lacks ecological validity.
Demand characteristics.
What are the strengths of field experiments?
Higher ecological validity.
Reduced demand characteristics
What are the limitations of field experiments?
Loss of control over extraneous variables.
Ethical issues - Consent, deception and protection from harm.
What are the strengths of natural experiment?
Reduces demand characteristics.
Ecologically valid.
What are the limitations of natural experiment?
Loss of control.
Ethical issues.
What are the strengths of quasi experimental method?
High Control.
What are the limitations of quasi experimental method?
Lacks ecological validity.
May have a bias sample, participants can be randomly allocated into groups.
What is the experimental lab method?
Participants know they are in a study. Manipulated IV in a controlled environment.
What is the field experimental method?
Participants don’t know they are in a study. Manipulated IV in a natural environment.
What is the natural experimental method?
Participants don’t know they are in a study. No manipulated IV in a natural environment.
What is the quasi experimental method?
The IV cannot be determined by anyone because it already exists e.g. gender, age. In a controlled environment.
What is random sampling?
Every person has an equal chance of being selected. Selection must be unbiased.
What is an opportunity sample?
Pick people who are readily available.
What is a self-selected sample (volunteer)?
Participants select themselves e.g. replying to an advertisement.
What is a systematic sample?
Select participants at fixed intervals e.g. every n’th person.
What is a stratified sample?
Your sample if in proportion to those in the population you are studying.
What are the strengths of random sampling?
The sample is totally unbiased.
What are the limitations of random sampling?
The sample you end up with might be unrepresentative.
What are the strengths of opportunity sampling?
Easy to get the sample.
What are the limitations of opportunity sampling?
High chance of bias the researcher will choose to study.
What are the strengths of the self-selected (volunteer) sampling?
You just have to sit and wait for the volunteers.
What are the limitations of the self-selected (volunteer) sampling?
Majority of people wont respond.
Biased sample.
What are the strengths of the systematic sampling?
It is a fairly unbiased method.
What are the limitations of the systematic sampling?
Not truly random
Might be unrepresentative.
What are the strengths of the stratified sampling?
The sample is representative.
Random sample, unbiased.
What are the limitations of the stratified sampling?
It is time consuming.
Expensive.
What are the 4 major ethical issues?
Informed consent, deception, protection from harm, privacy and confidentiality.
What is informed consent?
Participants are aware of the aims of the research and their rights (right to withdraw).
What is decpetion?
Deliberately misleading or withholding information from participant.
What is protection from harm?
Participants should not be placed at any more risk thank they would be in their daily lives. No physical harm or psychological harm allowed.
What is confidentiality?
Participants have a right to confidentiality and how their data is used, Data Protection Act.
How do you deal with informed consent?
Presumptive consent.
Prior agreement consent.
Retrospective consent.
How do you deal with deception and protection from harm?
Right to withdraw.
Offer counselling.
Debrief must reveal the true aims of the study.
How to deal with confidentiality?
Keep personal data protected.
Use numbers or fake names.
Right to withdraw.
What is a pilot study?
A small-scale trial run of the actual study. Saves time and money.
What is a confederate?
Actors who play alongside participants.
What is the placebo?
When a persons physical or mental health appears to change after a treatment or placebo.
What is the control condition?
The group that is used to compare against the experimental. Lacks manipulation.
What is the experimental condition?
The group is exposed to the independent variable.
What is an observation?
A researcher watches or listens to participants.
What is a controlled observation?
Some variables are regulated by the researcher.
What are the strengths of a controlled observation?
Allows researcher to determine cause and effect between variables. Reduced extraneous variables.
What are the limitations of a controlled observation?
May not capture reality.
No ecological validity.
What is a naturalistic observation?
Observing spontaneously occurring behaviour in a natural environment.
What are the strengths of a naturalistic observation?
External Validity - generalisable
Suitable for studying things that cant be looked at in a lab.
What are the limitations of a naturalistic observation?
Ethical issues - consent
Lack of control
Not reliable
What is a covert observation?
A group/participant is observed without their knowledge.
What is the strengths of a covert observation?
Behaviour is natural - ecological validity
Reduced demand characteristics.
What are the limitations of a covert obeservation?
Ethics - lack of consent
Dangerous if observing a mental illness or a crime.
What is an overt observation?
A researchers presence is obvious and people know they are being observed.
What are the strengths of an overt observation?
Ethical - has consent
What are the limitations of an overt observation?
Demand characteristics.
What is a participant observation?
Where the observer is apart of the group they are observing.
What are the strengths of a participant observation?
Increased insight into behaviour studied.
What are the limitations of a participation observation?
Ethics - Consent and confidentiality
Bias - may get to involved.
What is a non-participant observation?
The observer is not directly involved in what is being observed.
What are the strengths of a non-participant observation?
More ethical
Less bias, observer is more objective.
What are the limitations of a non-participant observation?
Loss of valuable insight gained with participant observation.
What is a structured observation?
Collecting data in a controlled environment.
What are the strengths of a structured observation?
Recording data is easy due to behavioural categories
Data is quantitative
Observer is more likely to be objective.
What are the limitations of a structured observation?
Data lacks detail and depth.
What is an unstructured observation?
Where there is no behavioural categories so every behaviour is written down.
What are the strengths of an unstructured observation?
Data has detail and depth.
What are the limitations of an unstructured observation?
Data tends to be qualitative and difficult to analyse
Observer tends to be less objective.
What is a behavioural category?
Target behaviours are operationalised and defined.
What are the different sampling methods in observations?
Event sampling, time sampling.
What is an event sample?
Where you count the number of times a particular behaviour occurs.
What is time sampling?
Only recording behaviours within a pre-established time frame.
What is inter-observer reliability?
How well the recorded data matches the two observers.
How can you improve inter-observer reliability?
Make sure each observer has the same level of training and behavioural categories are clearly defined.
How can you asses inter-observer reliabilty?
Use a scatter graph and a line of best fit.
What is a questionnaire?
A pre-set list of questions that a participant responds to.
What is an open ended question?
Questions that don’t have a fixed range of answers.
What is a closed ended question?
Questions have a fixed number of responses participants can choose from.
What are the strengths of using questionaires?
Can quickly be distributed
Ethical - have to give consent
Easy to analyse - quantitative data.
What are the limitations of using questionnaires?
Social desirability can affect validity.
May not get indepth data.
What is a unstructured interview?
General aim/topic to the conversation but is a free flowing conversation.
What is a semi-structured interview?
A list of questions are asked but follow up questions are asked where appropriate.
What is an unstructured interview?
A pre-determined set of questions are asked.
What are the strengths of interviews?
Qualitative data - detailed and in depth answers
Usually have a large sample - representative
Easily replicable - Structured
What are the limitations of interviews?
Not cheap/easy - have to interview one person at a time
Harder to analyse responses
Social desirability.
What is the likert scale?
How much they agree with the statement on usually a 5 point scale.
What is a ratings scale?
Participants assign a value to their feelings on a topic - 1-10.
What is fixed choice options?
Includes a list of possible options for participant to select.
What are the different designs of a questionaire?
Likert scale, ratings scale, fixed choice options.
What shouldn’t you include in your questions?
Jargon, emotive language, leading questions, double barrelled questions.
What is a correlation?
A relationship between variables.
What does a positive correlation show?
As one variable increases so does the other.
What does a negative correlation show?
As one variable increases the other one decreases.
What is a good correlation coefficient?
0.8
What is a strength of correlations?
Easy to see a relationship
Can use secondary data.
What is a limitation of correlations?
Cant establish cause and effect
3rd variable may be the problem.
What is qualitative data?
Non-numerical data.
What is a strength of qualitative data?
In depth answers
Give reasoning to data collected.
What is a limitation of qualitative data?
Difficult to analyse and put into a graph
Open to bias.
What is quantitative data?
Numerical data.
What is a strength of quantitative data?
Easy to analyse and put into graphs
Less biased.
What is a limitation of quantitative data?
Lacks detail and depth.
Low ecological validity - cant generalise it.
What is primary data?
Data that is collected first hand for the purpose of the study.
What is secondary data?
Data collected for another reason and already exists.
What is a strength of primary data?
It is authentic data for that singular study.
What is a limitation of primary data?
Collecting primary data is time consuming.
What is a strength of secondary data?
Inexpensive and easy to collect.
What is a limitation of secondary data?
May not be of good quality
May be outdated
May not be particularly suited for your study.
What is a meta-analysis?
A researcher uses findings from a number of studies and produces a statistic to represent the overall effect.
What is a strength of meta-analysis?
Representative of population
Data has already been collected
Cost-effective
Time-effective.
What is a limitation of meta-analysis?
Can be a victim of publication bias
What are the measures of central-tendency?
Mean, median and mode.
How do you get the mean?
Add all values together and divide by how many their were.
How do you get the median?
Put all the data in order of higher to lower and select the one in the middle.
How do you get the mode?
The most commonly occurring score in the data set.
What are the strengths of using the mean?
It is most representative of the central tendencies.
What are the limitations of using the mean?
It is easily distorted by extreme values.
What are the strengths of using the median?
Isn’t distorted by extreme values.
What are the limitations of using the median?
Less sensitive than the mean, not representative of all that data.
What are the strengths of using the mode?
Shows the most common category in the data.
What are the limitations of using the mode?
Less sensitive than the mean.
What are the measures of dispersion?
Range and standard deviation.
What are the strengths of the range?
Easy to calculate.
What are the limitations of the range?
Only takes into account to the 2 most extreme vales so isn’t representative of the rest of data.
What are the strengths of standard deviation?
More precise as it encompasses all values.
What are the limitations of standard deviation?
Can be swayed by extreme results.
What does the standard deviation tell you?
How far the scores deviate on average from the mean.
What are the different types of graphs?
Bar charts, histograms, line graphs and scattergrams.
What is a peer review?
An evaluation done by others similar in age or in the same field that assess work.
What are the strengths of a peer review?
It can improve the quality of your research
Advice to take into consideration in the future.
What are the limitations of a peer review?
The work is unpaid and your are not credited for peer reviewing
May mark badly to ‘get their own back’
Could bury ground breaking research so that the ‘status quo’ isn’t broken.
Is there a potential for bias in peer reviewing?
Yes the reviewers is anonymous.
What is content analysis?
It converts qualitative data into quantitative.
What are the strengths of content analysis?
Allows qualitative data to be put into graphs
Few ethical issues.
What is the limitations of content analysis?
No in depth detail now
Can be subjective.
How do you test reliability?
Test retest.
What is a test retest?
Give a test to participant then wait for them to forget and retest. The results should have a positive correlation.
What are the limitations of test retest?
Very time consuming.
How do you improve the reliability of interviews?
Use structured interviews
Clear questions.
What is another word for external validtiy?
Ecological or population validity.
What is concurrent validity?
Whether the results of the most recent test correspond to tests previously done.
What is content/face validity?
Whether a test appears to measure what its supposed to measure.
